Current hospital accreditation standards mandate that all patients be provided with the means to summon the assistance of caregivers (e.g. nurse call). Many critical care patients are too weak to activate standard or alternative nurse call switches that are available at most facilities. Mechanical ventilation further limits patients to use voice to summon or communicate with caregivers. For many patients in intensive care and long term acute care settings, there are no existing communication methods that can transduce the minimal intentional gestures that these patients are capable of making. These and other shortcomings are addressed in the present disclosure.